


And When the Curtains Close

by foreword



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-31
Updated: 2005-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:17:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4913806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreword/pseuds/foreword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only question had been when.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And When the Curtains Close

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2005 for sirius_loving's [Challenge 42](http://www.livejournal.com/community/sirius_loving/1567.html#cutid1).
> 
> A million thanks to [](http://happiestwhen.livejournal.com/profile)[**happiestwhen**](http://happiestwhen.livejournal.com/) and [](http://incognito.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://incognito.livejournal.com/)**incognito** for the excellent betas! ♥  
> 
> 
>   
>  ***  
> 

  
"The boy seems to think your mutt is in danger."

Remus was leaving the room before the words had a chance to register with the others, a sneering Severus Snape looking entirely too pleased with himself as Albus removed his glasses.

His fingers scrabbled along the coat check for his travelling cloak, Dumbledore's response to Snape trailing after him down the stairs of the Hog's Head.

"Where is Harry now?"

Sirius. Harry. Voldemort was playing them against each other and Remus wouldn't let it happen.

He was twenty years old again and Sirius was sitting beside him in silence, a tension so tangible and unexpected between them that it made Remus's chest ache. He'd heard the rumours. He lived them now. He'd been shunned by almost everyone he'd ever held close.

He'd never forget the expression on James's face the day he shut the door on Remus. Told him not to come back.

But he'd never expected Sirius to believe the rumours – believe that he would actually work for Voldemort. That he'd ever turn on James and Lily.

Sirius took a long pull of his cigarette before putting it out and standing up. He opened his mouth to say something but paused, his eyes shining with a million truths he'd never get to speak.

"See you around, Moony."

_Moony_.

That was what hurt more than anything. He was still Moony to Sirius, even now, in his darkest hour, when Sirius was acquiescing to the rumours. A part of Remus ached at this, wondered if Sirius ever really believed it, really thought that he was the traitor.

He'd always comforted himself with the belief that Sirius, James's eternal watchdog, had realised who needed him more. It made it hurt less.

Remus apparated to Grimmauld Place and when he turned the doorknob, he found himself suddenly face to face with Sirius, his wand in his hand and blood on his fingers.

"You've heard."

It was more of a sigh, an exasperated sort of statement. There would be no stopping him now. He closed the door behind him, leaning up against it.

"He's got Harry."

Harry.

Long after James and Sirius broke off their friendship with Remus, Lily continued to send him owls. She was never one to give up on people, never one to believe that one's worth was determined by his appearance or circumstance. She was also never one to be told what to do.

Remus almost laughed the first time she wrote to him. The night Padfoot left him. Her letters were always brief and lacking in details, but Remus reread them until the parchment was thin and the edges were worn. There was often a sense of reprimand in them as well, as if Lily were quietly tut-tutting the boys for their tiff. He wished it were that simple.

She only sent him a photograph once, something he imagined had been difficult for her to sneak by James. And so it was that one lonely night, Remus unrolled a piece of parchment to find baby Harry staring up at him, his tiny fist clutched lovingly around Sirius's finger. The expression on Sirius's face was one that Remus would never forget.

_…asked him to be Harry's godfather_.

Remus would carry this particular letter and photo around with him for months, his heart swelling every time he pulled it out to look at it.

And now Sirius's only charge, only responsibility in the world, all that remained of Lily and James, was in danger. Remus knew that Sirius didn't see much of a point to his existence at the present, but if there was one, Harry was it.

Remus shook his head, but he knew somehow that Sirius was right.

"You don't know that - what's important is that you're -"

"I know it. We have to go, Moony."

Remus nodded wearily, his gaze flickering to Sirius's bloodied fingers.

"What...?"

Sirius glanced down and shrugged it off, wiping his hands on his trousers.

"Buckbeak."

Remus frowned but Sirius was already reaching behind him for the door. As if the sound had suddenly been turned on, Remus realised the portrait was screaming. Sirius hadn't taken the news quietly.

But for once in the many years that he'd known Sirius, he was deaf to his mother's insults.

Wordlessly, Remus pulled Sirius's cloak off of the peg by the door and followed him through it.

 

*

Remus hadn't spoken as they apparated to the back alley and began searching for the phone booth, but he found he could no longer hold his tongue.

"Sirius, are you sure you should... that is, I'm not sure it's wise for you to go walking into the Ministry... and you're..."

But Remus gave off his tentative worrying with a look from Sirius. He'd seen that look before.

They were sixteen again, and Sirius was quiet through the entire train ride back to Hogwarts. James and Remus exchanged glances throughout the silent trip, and Peter watched him nervously and constantly. They didn't ask why he had so little with him, or why he'd shown up at King's Cross by himself. They pretended not to notice when Regulus showed up a bit later, with Mr. and Mrs. Black in toe.

That was what friends did, anyway. They kept each others secrets and didn't ask, didn't prod, until a bloke was willing to talk about it.

But Sirius had never been one to keep things bottled up, and they'd barely made it back to the dorms from the welcoming feast, when he announced, in an off-hand comment to James, that he'd run away from home.

James nodded, and without the slightest pause for surprise or disappointment, suggested that Sirius stay with him over holidays.

And Sirius hadn't gone back. At least, not until he'd had to. Not until the Order needed him to. Remus knew he hated every second he spent in the house, but he did it. Sirius had a fierce sense of duty, something that most people would never – could never – understand. He'd never told Sirius, but Remus wasn't the slightest bit surprised when Sirius's animagus turned out to be a creature known for loyalty.

He'd had the same look of determination when he'd escaped from Azkaban. That was how Remus had known, about Pettigrew and everything else. As soon as Remus had looked him in the eye, had seen the crazed desperation to put things right, the pain and suffering the years had instilled as some sort of permanent loop of horrors in his mind, Remus knew the truth.

Sirius was shouting at the voice on the other end of the telephone and they were dropping, suddenly, plummeting toward the ministry so fast that Remus hardly had a chance to wonder at the strangely familiar black creatures picking through a bin on the other end of the alley.

Remus could hardly keep up as they charged through the atrium, toward the elevators. Sirius growled in frustration at the machines and in a flash of pink through the closing doors, Remus realised the rest of the Order had arrived.

"We'll get there. Harry'll be fine. He always is."

Sirius didn't answer, his body rigid, his finger stabbing impatiently at the button for Level 9. Finally they clattered to a halt and Sirius raced down the hallway, apparently with little thought of Remus behind him, throwing himself against the door so hard that he stumbled as he fell into the pitch-black room.

The darkness swirled around them confusingly and Remus frowned, noting fading red Xs on some of the doors and nodding toward the one to Sirius's left as the doors stopped spinning. The door they'd entered through swung open again, the rest of the order filing in behind them, and Remus felt a small surge of relief at Dumbledore's presence.

The door swung open and they were moving without a thought.

Remus understood the desperation, understood that Harry was what Sirius lived for now. And he had known all along, really, from the moment he'd watched Sirius holding that tiny hand and looking down at Harry as if he were his own. He'd known that Sirius took his charge very seriously. That he would love Harry as fiercely as he'd loved James, and Harry would be as much his son as theirs. James was his only real family, after all.

So it had never been a question of whether or not Sirius would die for the boy. The only question had been when.

And as they raced down the steps toward the veil, it was with a sudden cold clarity that Remus knew the answer.


End file.
